Mind Eraser

After the recent snowfall, I joined Troy and Ben for a long, 12.5hr tour covering more than 11 miles, 5000ft in climbing, more than 6000ft in descent.  The general plan was to ski Snowslide Canyon, Jay's Slide and Determination chutes with an egress skin/slog out Freidlein Prairie Road to a stashed vehicle.....with Jay's Slide and Determination chutes being new to us.

The day dawned with Bluebird and calm conditions as we bootpacked our way around the NW flank of Aggasiz Peak...Troy took a bit of a slide here before slowing himself with his Whippet and arresting on a boulder.....

Photo By Troy Mario

After digging a pit with great conditions, Troy prepares to drop into Snowslide Canyon, Mt. Humphreys peak in the background......

Dropping in, the new board takes flight..........

....cranking soft turns down to the apron; Ben and I started drooling and awaited our turn....

After I dropped in, cranking some cushy turns up top and then letting it open up a bit, I turned to shoot Ben on his first tour of the Kachina's........

......the conditions were great for throwin' spray.....

.....and great for layin' it over.......

.....most of the day felt and looked like this......

Pit Results from Snowslide Canyon here........

Making our way down lower Snowslide Canyon, we transitioned south to the toe of Telemark Chute and started skinning up, lookers left of Jay's Slide.....

How many lines can you count in this pano?........

Transitioning through the trees, lookers left of Jay's Slide, we set a skin track up Birthday Boy Chute.....which was last skied on my Birthday....June 19th of last year....

Photo By Troy Marino

Cutting over just below the rock amphitheater guarding the entrance to Jay's slide....we proceeded to dig a pit....we were sorry to see so much debris fall down on such a virgin slope....but we'd rather dirty it up a bit than get rolled in an avalanche........

Photo By Ben

Pano shot of Troy picking the pit location, top of Jay's Slide.....

After pit tests and a brief discussion about a layer of concern below the new snow, we laid out a plan of attack and discussed consequences should the slope fail....I won the lottery and got to drop first....

Photo By Troy Marino

......according to Troy, my metronome like turns "looked like I was in slow motion, floating on a cloud of titties"......from my perspective....it felt like I was making slow falling turns on a cloud of titties.......

Photo By Troy Marino 

After making turns, I cut skiers left to a safe spot and filmed some shaky video of Ben dropping in....making high speed turns to skiers left of my track.....it's so hard to keep a steady hand when you're so amped....

Following Ben's high speed spray fest.....Troy dropped skiers left and let it go....

I love this these fast shutter speed shots of the spray, back-lit and in flight.....

Finishing up the lower portion of Jay's Slide, Troy snaps a cover shot.....

Photo By Troy Marino

Jay's Slide Pit Observations here......

In the fading sunlight of late afternoon, we climb back up the skin track we set to the top of Jay's Slide.  Taking one last look at our turns from above, cut by the long shadows; we started bootpacking up the Eastern ridge of Fremont Peak to the entrance of Determination chute.

The ridge up Fremont gave us great views of the Inner Basin, long on shadow....

Photo By Troy Marino

The ski out Determination chute was 1" death crust, making my transition one of survival...the splitboarders surfed it up though......

Photo By Troy Marino

Returning to the car at 9:20pm....all were exhausted, having been without water for the previous 2 hours...but happy to drink a beer and toast a great day of having our mind's erased.